Greetings and welcome to Word Magazine number 163. This is Jeff Riddle, pastor of Christ Reformed Baptist Church in Louisa, Virginia. In this episode, I want to do a follow-up to an interaction that I had back on January the 29th of this year, back in the pre-COVID days, on Josh Gibbs' Talking Christianity podcast. And there was a program that we had with Peter Gurry, Dr. Peter Gurry of Phoenix Seminary, and James Snapp, a pastor, a Campbellite pastor from Indiana. And unfortunately, that conversation that we had, it was supposed to be a moderated conversation between our three positions, with Dr. Gurry representing modern reason, eclecticism, and James Knapp representing a variety of advocacy for the majority text, what he calls equitable eclecticism, and my position, which is defense for the traditional text that I like to call the confessional text position, the Masoretic text of the Hebrew Old Testament and the Texas Receptus of the Greek New Testament. Anyways, we're supposed to have a moderated conversation, make an opening statement, ask each other questions. It sort of became a bit of a disorderly disaster. I called it a train wreck. I did a follow-up blog post about it. And by the way, as always, if you go to jeffriddle.net, my blog, I'll have a post about this episode of Word Magazine. I'll have my notes and I'll have links to various and sundry things. I'll have a link to the blog post that I did on as a follow-up to that conversation with Dr. Gurry and with Pastor Snap. Despite the fact that I wasn't pleased with the conversation overall, there was a lot of talking over each other. I still think and I know that some people have told me they profited from it and every once in a while I continue to hear from folk. I just got a text last week from somebody in California saying they had run across it and it piqued their interest in the confessional text position. So anyways, sometimes we have a low esteem for something. We don't feel like it was that great, that edifying, but somebody profits from it. But anyways, there are a number of things about that conversation, I think, that made the interaction difficult. in addition to the problems with moderation and talking over each other. But more to the point, first of all, for one thing, my co-participants, Dr. Gurry and Pastor Snapp, you know, continued to want to make the conversation about a discussion about the empirical evidence and how, you know, reconstruction works and so forth. And what was seemed not to have been grasped or acknowledged or responded to was my argument that the entire method of reconstruction is futile given the paucity of extant evidence and the scattered and fragmented condition of most of the evidence for attempting to reconstruct books of the New Testament in particular. And then for another thing, and this was particularly with regard to Peter Gurry, I found it frustrating in the conversation that he I thought wasn't willing to acknowledge or respond to what I believe are some basic factual realities about what is going on in modern text criticism, and particularly, obviously, in the academy and how that's trickling down into modern translations of the Bible and into the person in the pew and the pastor in the pulpit. But this shift from the old modern paradigm, searching for the original autograph, to the postmodern paradigm, which says we can't reconstruct the original, and we have a living text, and we don't have the text of Scripture singular. We have texts of Scripture. We have many traditions, and each one of those is important and should be taken as significant and so forth. First, Dr. Gurry and the conversation dismissed altogether as insignificant. this postmodern shift that has taken place in contemporary text criticism. And it's accompanying abandonment of any sense of certainty with respect to the reconstruction of the so-called autograph. And so it creates epistemological problems for those who are attempting to hold to traditional Christianity. And I think evangelicals, embraced whole hog modern text criticism, have a major epistemology problem. I've addressed that before, including in the last episode of Word Magazine and Word Magazine 162. Secondly, oddly enough, in the conversation with Dr. Peter Gurry, he seemed to deny even the influence of one particular scholar, D.C. Parker, And I characterize in the conversation D.C. Parker as a gatekeeper in contemporary academic text criticism that is an influential thinker who has greatly shaped the approach to the modern study of the text in the academy. And Gurry, oddly enough, even though he has a PhD in Cambridge and he is a technical scholar in the field, He seemed to want to dismiss that and to say, no, there's still evangelicals who are still using basically the old method and they're still attempting to get the authorial text. And Parker is an important text critic and academic, but he's not really having much influence. And I was really dismayed by that. And I'd wanted to follow up and I mentioned it in the blog posts that I did right after. And I wanted to do a follow up to press this a little bit further, because the problem is there could be people who watched that interaction and they heard my questions and my challenging Dr. Geary and his dismissal and his appeal, I think, to his academic authority to dismiss these things that I was talking about. And so I might walk away thinking, well, maybe there hasn't been a big shift that's taken place. I mean, Geary studied this a lot. He's a published author in the field. Perhaps he knows what he's talking about. And for that reason, I had wanted to do this and just hadn't had a chance to get around to it. And so I'm remedying that today. So in this Word magazine, I want to do four things. First of all, I want to play a clip from that January 29th Josh Gibbs podcast in which I posed a question to Peter Gurre and we had some interaction on this topic. where the shift in postmodern text criticism and the influence of DC Parker came up. And it's about 11, 12 minutes, and I'm going to try to play it without too much over-commentary, but I just want that to set the stage for the rest of the conversation. Then secondly, I want to talk a little bit about D.C. Parker and his influence in contemporary text criticism. And I want to look at why he is significant and why his views shouldn't be dismissed or overlooked as Gary suggested that they be. Third, I want to read for you a book review that I published several years back now. It was back in 2014. A book review that I did of D.C. Parker's book, Textual Scholarship and the Making of the New Testament, published by Oxford University Press in 2012. And I think the reading of that book review will help you judge for yourself what Parker's views are and whether or not they have been influential. Again, I did this book review two years after the book came out, Parker's book came out. And it appeared in the journal American Theological Inquiry. And it's a book review that I haven't yet posted to my academia.edu page. And I may get around to doing that at some point, too. But I'm just going to give you a reading of it, of the book review. It's fairly short, I think three or four pages. But anyways, then finally, after we've done that, fourthly, I want to offer some brief concluding thoughts. So first, again, we'll play the clip with the interaction with Gurry. Secondly, talk about D.C. Parker. Third, read my book review of Parker's textual scholarship in the making of the New Testament. And fourth, offer some brief concluding thoughts. So let's begin with the clip from the discussion on Josh Gibbs' podcast. And again, The way this thing was supposed to go is we were supposed to give our opening statements, which we did, and then we were supposed to, in a sort of a round-robin format, ask each other questions. We only got through a couple of these before it sort of went out of control and the conversation wasn't moderated. and it sort of ran off the rails. But the very first question was given to me and I posed it to Peter Goury. So again, without too much interruption, I'm gonna play this and then we'll use this as a basis for assessing what Dr. Goury says. And really I'm not picking on Dr. Goury per se, But what are the challenges for evangelicals, self-described evangelicals who have embraced the modern text criticism and post-modern text criticism? So here we go. Perfect. So, and with that said, guys, we're going to go into our first line of questioning and that'll lead us to Jeff Riddle. You're up first. So you just tell us who you want to direct the question to, and then that person will have seven minutes to respond. we can decide if we want to run with that topic or not, so turn it over to you. Okay. I'm going to direct this question to Peter first. I'll have one for James next time my turn comes around. So Peter, recently on the Evangelical Sexual Criticism blog, your fellow text critic and co-author of your book on the CBGM, Tommy Wasserman wrote the following in a comment. He said, I have no intention of trying to prove that this or that textual variant is the original word of God. I would like to work as a text critic as if God didn't exist, so to speak. My question is, do you agree with this statement? How does it reflect the current postmodern approach to scripture? And do you perceive any dangers that this method poses? How would you respond to Tommy Wasserman regarding this statement? And again, both his statement that he doesn't see it as his job to prove any textual variant is original or is the word of God, and also that he wants to, I guess, act with neutrality as if God didn't exist with no presuppositions doctrinal or spiritual in approaching the scriptures. Sure. Yep. So I'm going to respond to that position rather than Tommy because if I were going to respond to Tommy I would do that in person. I think that was an odd response. I wasn't asking him to make a response to Tommy Wasserman. Obviously I was asking him to make a response to what Tommy Wasserman said. And I try to make that clear. I don't have any animus against Tommy Wasserman per se. Obviously. But, uh, no, I did not. Obviously I was asking hypothetically. And by the way, let me, let me just say too, I don't want to eat up the time, but I met Tommy also at the same conference in Southeastern where I met, uh, James Knapp, and I really enjoy talking with Tommy. I'm not saying this to bash him. I really appreciated talking with him. But, nevertheless, what's your response to that statement? Yeah, good question. So, I would never say it that way. My basic response would be to say, I hope, as Christians, we don't ever do anything as if God doesn't exist, even so to speak. So in those comments, in that thread, if people go to the ETC blog, they can see Tommy's clarifications of what he meant, and I think he explained himself in a way that's much better than saying he does text criticism as if God doesn't exist, so to speak. But no, I would never say it that way, and I don't think any Christian should do anything as if God does not exist. Do you want me to expand on that? Well, you could. Maybe we could talk about it, but what about the previous part of the question when he said, or his statement, that he has no intention of attempting to prove that any textual variant is the original Word of God. And maybe this speaks to how the purpose or goal of text criticism has changed among those who are practitioners of reason, the collecticism, the postmodern influence on text criticism, so that Whereas in the 20th century, Metzger and others would have been saying, we're trying to find the original autograph, what Paul wrote or what Matthew wrote originally. But it seems that that goal has been put aside. Now there's talk about trying to get the initial text or the earliest text possible. What do you perceive the goal of textual criticism is in the Academy? Yeah, so there's a couple things there. One, I think in Tommy's statement, you'd have to ask him, obviously, to know for sure, but I think when I read that comment, the key thing that I saw there was his qualifications, not trying to find the original text, and then he qualified it, what did he say, something like, that is the word of God? And I think what he was trying to say, and again, you have to ask him to clarify, what I assume he meant was something like, I'm not doing text criticism with a theological need for absolute certainty. Instead, he's doing it historically, and he's asking historical questions, and he's yet letting the evidence drive his conclusions without letting his theology predetermine them. That would be my guess. Again, you'd have to ask him for sure. If you want to know about the goal of text criticism in the Modern Academy, that's going to depend on the person and the editor. So, for example, the Tyndale editors, to my understanding, are still happily pursuing the original text. As you may know, they do not print any conjectures in their edition either, and that's a matter of principle on their part. So there's a major edition. When I asked Mike Holmes about this in his edition, that's a reason eclectic edition. He also says that he's following the early, he's trying to attain the earliest attainable text or the original text. I don't think that he necessarily makes a big distinction between those. The initial text is something that's become quite important in relation to the coherence-based genealogical method, and there's plenty I could say about this. I've written on this at some length, so I'll give you the very short version. If folks are interested, you could save way more money than you want to and buy a hundred dollar book. So I published dissertation, but here's the very short version in the term initial text. Uh, let's pause here for a moment. So in the conversation he's saying, listen, you know, he's down, he's going to downplay all throughout this, that there has been a seismic shift in contemporary academic study of the text of scripture. And he's going to say, Oh, there are still people at Tyndall house. who put together the 10 to House Creek New Testament, who are still searching for the authorial texts. He'll even call as a witness, Michael Holmes, who is a modern text critic with an evangelical background. But what he doesn't say is that all of these folk are influenced by modern text criticism and this shift that has taken place, this move away from an effort to say we can capture the autograph versus the best we can trace the text back to the so-called initial text. And he's going to go into some more detail about the Ausgang's text or the initial text as it is conceived in the coherence-based genealogical method. But he wants to downplay the fact that this is going to have a significant impact for evangelicals who have embraced this method. So we'll continue. ...refers to the text from which our extant evidence descended from. Now, that definition is very important because that definition allows for the initial text to be the author's original text, right? Obviously, the author's original text may well be the text from which all the extant evidence has descended. However, it also allows for the possibility that that's not the case. The best that we can do in some instances is, you know, a text that is not the author's text but maybe was edited later or various other options. In some cases, if people posit, say, two autographs, by a New Testament author, it can allow for things like that. However, the editors who have coined that term are quite clear in their editions so far that they see no reason to think that there is any difference between their reconstructed initial text and the author's texts, in this case of Acts and the Catholic letters. So is the definition of the initial text important? Yes. Is the shift A real yes. Is it a significant shift in my opinion? No, it's not. All right. Has this been a significant shift? Here is Dr. Peter Gurry with a PhD from Cambridge in text criticism, teaching in an evangelical seminary, who's saying that this shift that has taken place from the goals of modern text criticism, which was to reconstruct the original, to postmodern text criticism, which is we can construct the initial text, which essentially we can say we can construct a text that goes back as far as we can. We can't say for sure that it is the authorial text, but even though there are some people who might accept it as that, that that's not been very important. And we'll talk more about that. Obviously, I think it has been very important. But let's go with a little bit more of the conversation. major shift. So in my book with Tommy, I think I call it something like a, what do I call it? A minor shift or something like that. I'm not convinced it has anything to do with post-modernism. Sorry. Well, maybe I don't want to go. It's very interesting too. He's denying that the contemporary approach to text criticism has been influenced by post-modernism by a shift, worldview shift, I think that's generally recognized in the academic study, not just of religion, but all fields of humanities, that there has been a shift. There's a different approach. There's an approach that, as opposed to the modern scientific approach, there has been a shift. There's a greater degree of relativism. there is a greater degree of suggesting that there are multiple approaches to the truth and not one set expression of the truth. That there's truth according to your sociological perspective or according to your ethnicity or according to your background. Um, so, but that has had no influence at all on the texts or scripture. This is what Dr. Peter Gurry is telling us. And I think that is extremely naive. Um, but let's let the conversation continue, you know, so much in discussing the definitions of the initial text, but I mean, do you perceive there is a danger in the movement in modern academic text criticism away from maybe the 19th and 20th century goal of finding the original in using the reconstruction method and the modern method, which seems to say we can't really find out what the original was. And maybe we'll give people three or four options. And I'm thinking about the way that this sort of trickles down to the pew You have something like the New Living Translation. You come to the end of Mark, and it includes the so-called shorter ending of Mark, which is only a handful of manuscripts that are all late. And this has never been accepted, you know, universally by the church as scripture. But now it's inserted in the New Living Translation alongside of Mark 16, 9 through 20. And then they also include the Freer Logion in there as well, so that the idea is, I called it Build-A-Bear. You sort of construct your own text, and people like D.C. Parker did it exactly that way. He thinks that's wonderful. It would be wonderful to have sort of everybody creates their own text of scripture. It's very postmodern, but as a traditional Christian, That's alarming to me, because I think the person in the pew has a fundamental view that when he opens the Bible, it is the Word of God, and he wants to read what he is certain is the Word of God. And more than that, I think experientially, as I said earlier, because it is inspired and because it is God-breathed, it is self-authenticating to the reader. Here I'm basically just attempting to articulate to Dr. Gurry what I believe would be a traditional Protestant view of scripture, of its inspiration and its self-authenticating nature, that would necessarily mean that things like the so-called shorter ending of Mark or the freer Logion, which is an addition to the ending of Mark that appears in one extant Greek manuscript, Codex Washingtoniensis, that those things should not be considered part of the normative, authentic texts of the Bible. In the Textus Receptus, the ending of Mark is Mark 16, 9 through 20, the traditional ending. And it's only in the modern age, influenced by postmodern methodology, that we have things like the New Living Translation that incorporates in the ending of Mark the so-called shorter ending, then the traditional ending, Mark 16, 9 through 20. And it also includes in the footnotes the text for the Freer Logion, so that the reader has a hodgepodge for the text of Mark, and my point is that what has been done in the Academy is trickling down into modern translations of the Bible, and thereby, when those Bibles are used, it's trickling down into the pew. Now, let's listen to Dr. Gurry's response to this. "...demonstrates itself to be that, whether critics trust that or not, based on the external evidence." Right, so if it's self-authenticating, I suppose somebody could say, well, the Freer Logion is self-authenticating to me as scripture, and so it is scripture, right? Yeah, what do you say to this? So he says, he's saying, well, you're saying that the traditional text of the Bible is self-authenticating, but what if someone came along and said that this one verse that appears, this one edition, that appears in Codex Washingtoniensis, one extant manuscript, that it is self-authenticating. Well, that's an interesting hypothetical type of statement, but it just shows that Dr. Gurry is not approaching the study of Scripture from any firm perspective about what the canon of the text of Scripture is. The Freer Logion is not Alta Pistos. It has not been recognized by God's people as the Word of God, even if some spurious grouper, as far as we know, you know, one scribe added it to Codex, one extant unsealed Codex, Codex Washingtoniensis. But it's almost as if Dr. Gary doesn't even have the categories for understanding theologically what the self-authenticating nature of Holy Scripture is, and therefore he's willing to posit and want to give some validity. to some unknown person who introduced the freer logion, or who introduced the so-called shorter ending. And here's the odd thing. He's denying the influence of postmodernism in modern text criticism, and then he's demonstrating that influence in what he says, and that he's willing to accept these spurious readings as authentic. So it's ironic. In the conversation, maybe I wasn't able to think as quickly on my feet, but part of it, I was honestly in part stunned to hear some of the responses, atheological responses that I heard. So let's continue. We could probably talk about that at a somewhat more length. I think there's a real problem though, in the dots you've connected. So we could talk about David Parker and I think his view of the living text is very problematic, both for historical reasons, but also for theological reasons. And I do think it is to be rejected. Again, it's interesting. We'll come back in a few moments in the second part, we're going to talk about DC Parker and what he means by the living text. Now, oddly enough, On one hand, Dr. Greer is going to tell us he rejects D.C. Parker's method of the so-called living text, historically and theologically, but just a few seconds ago, He basically was using D.C. Parker's method when he suggested that the Freer Logion should be taken seriously because it was somewhere used in the larger, in quotation marks, Christian tradition, And therefore, its authenticity should not be invalidated because somebody made use of it. That's exactly what DC Parker says. So on one hand, he's saying he rejects DC Parker. He's telling us that here. But a few moments ago, he was saying things that are absolutely in line with what DC Parker says about the text. And I realized as I'm talking about this, that for some people who are new to this discussion, this could be very confusing. And I'm also thinking now in retrospect about people who may have listened to this online, and it could have been very confusing to them. in part because there was no consistency in the things that Peter Gurry was saying on a theological basis with respect to the doctrine of the text of Scripture. But let's continue. So yeah, I'm totally on board with you. I do not accept his view. You're not totally on board with me, and you are influenced by his view. And I don't think Christians should either. I also don't think text critics should either, or historians, for that matter. But you've conflated the New Living Translation with David Parker, and I think it would be really misleading for our listeners to think that somehow David Parker has influenced the New Living Translation, because that came out well before him, and I cannot imagine that it had any... That's an interesting I'll clarify this and I'll play that. I did clarify at the moment. I wasn't saying that DC Parker was one of the editors of the New Living Translation. What I meant was his construal of postmodern text criticism has influenced the people who edited the New Living Translation and the decisions they made about the text, and that's clear in the ending of Mark. He also said something that's interesting here. He said that D.C. Parker's academic research couldn't have influenced the New Living Translation. That's simply wrong. The Nestle Elan 28th edition came out in 2012. And as we'll see later on, D.C. Parker has been a major influence in the Editio Critica Maior in the development of the coherence-based genealogical method. The New Living Translation was done in 2015. So there's no doubt that the editors of the New Living Translation were directly influenced by the postmodern text criticism advocated by D.C. Parker. And it would be a complete denial of reality to say that they were not influenced by D.C. Parker. But that's what Dr. Gurry said. on the evangelical translators. Yeah, I wouldn't imply there's a direct link, but don't you think that there is a connection? I tried to be charitable. I'm probably being harsher here in the conversation, and I do want to be charitable to Dr. Gurry, but obviously I tried to push him a little bit on this, but in a charitable manner. Philosophically, between changes that have happened in the field of text criticism, And again, what's trickling down? I'm not saying that Parker had any hand in the New Living translation, but it's the mindset, the idea of we have to put many options and we're not completely sure of what the text is. We'll leave it to the reader to subjectively determine this for for himself or herself. And just just one other thing is to follow up on this and I'll be quiet. You know, D.C. Parker, And again, I'm not an expert on him. I've read some things he's written, but I mean, he's one of the major editors for the Additio Critica Maior. He is a gatekeeper of the, as I understand it, he's retiring, I think, but he's been a gatekeeper for the scholarly handbook. He's exerting a lot of influence on the text of scripture in the academy. Is he? This is really interesting. Dr. Gurry is going to deny the influence of DC Parker in the field of text criticism. I'll let him, you listen as he proceeds. He is? No, I think he's a tremendously important text critic for sure. And he's done some excellent work. I mean, if you haven't read his book on Codex Basi, you're missing out. She's going to say, yeah, he's a great text critic in the mentioning his book on codex base. If you haven't read it, of course, that's you haven't read this, but I have. And, um, I think he got a bit, a little bit defensive here, but, but, um, although he admits that DC Parker is a significant text critic, he denies the influence of his ideas in the field of text criticism. So let's listen as he continues. But, um, But I mean, we haven't even seen his edition yet, so why would we prejudge the matter? But I actually think this is a place where the initial text is a positive thing, because, and I argue this in my dissertation, that somebody like Mike Holmes, who's still committed to attaining the earliest original text, thinks the author's text is available and reconstructable, and somebody like David Parker, who thinks we should go after this living text, or that that's what we have, They can both do text prison pretty much the same way and agree on the same initial text Yes, and David Parker might walk away from that saying I've reconstructed an initial text that is not the author's text and Mike Holmes might look at that same exact initial text exact same string of words and say I think that's the author's text and All right, I'm going to stop right there. So that, hopefully that clip gives you a little bit of a feel for the discussion and maybe a little bit of a feel for why I felt pretty frustrated in the conversation with Peter Gurry, because I don't think that he was, in my opinion, honestly coming to terms with the influence of the postmodern shift that has transpired in text criticism. He's saying that evangelicals can make use of the postmodern methodology and still search for the author's text. And I just don't think that that's the reality. When evangelicals use postmodern methodology, they apply postmodern presuppositions and they arrive at postmodern findings. They're not exempt. from the influence of the theological angles of the method that they use. And when scholars, modern evangelical scholars, are talking about establishing the initial text, they're not talking with great certainty in the way that perhaps B.B. Warfield did in the, 19th and 20th century about establishing the autograph, the inerrant autograph. And it seems to me to be just silly to deny the fact that this shift has taken place. So for the second part of this episode, I want to talk a little bit about DC Parker, since that became an object of dispute. Gary said, yes, he's a great scholar, but he hasn't had that great an influence. He denied directly my assertion that DC Parker has been a gatekeeper, an influencer. in the field of contemporary academic text criticism. So I want to reflect on that a little bit. So to begin with, I went to Dr. David C. Parker's web page at the University of Birmingham in the UK. I'll put a link to his professor's page. when I put my blog posts up for Word Magazine 163. And if you go there, you'll find that he is listed, still listed, as Professor of Digital Philology in the Department of Theology and Religion. And the introductory blurb on his page there reads as follows. My main current work is editions of the Gospel of John funded by the AHRC. One is a critical edition of the Greek text in the series Novum Testamentum Graecae Editio Critica Maior in partnership with the Institut für Neu-Testamentliche Textforschung Münster, Germany. Another is an edition of the Gospel of John in Latin in the Vitas Latina series. So, David C. Parker is the editor for John in the Editio Critica Maior, and it is this edition that will show up in future handbook editions of the Novum Testamentum Graecae, and yet Dr. Peter Gurry is telling us this guy doesn't have much influence in the published handbooks of the Greek New Testament. Now, he may have been saying that his edition of John hasn't come yet, but he's had influence. This man has had influence. He's been influential, as we'll see, for the last 25 years. Right now, the CBGM has only been applied to the Catholic epistles. Maybe he wasn't working on the Catholic epistles, but he worked on John, and he's worked collaboratively with others in promoting this new CBGM postmodern method. And it seems to me, again, to be silly to deny that. On the same author's page, or professor's page at University of Birmingham, There is a lot of information about him. It's got a brief biography. It says, David C. Parker, I read theology at St. Andrews, specializing in New Testament and church history. From there, I went to Cambridge, where I completed a postgraduate degree and trained for the Anglican priesthood. After eight years in parochial ministry in North London and Oxfordshire, I moved to Birmingham in 1985, teaching at Queen's College until 1993. When I joined the department, I have a doctorate from the University of Leiden, the Netherlands. I have been executive editor of the International Greek New Testament Project since 1987. I am editor of the series, Texts and Studies, Contributions to Biblical and Patristic Literature, published by Gorgias Press, and Arbeiten zur Neu-Testamentliche Textforschung, published by De Gruyter. In 2012, I was elected a fellow at the British Academy. From the 2017-2018 academic year, I have taken STEPT, retirement, and will not be accepting any more postgraduate students. So obviously this guy is a gatekeeper for the academic study of the New Testament. He is an editor for the International Greek New Testament Project since 1987. He edits a prestigious academic series in text criticism called Texts and Studies. So let's not deny that this man is influential. You may disagree with him, but he's been influential. Then under the little section about his research, it says this, my main current work is editions of the Gospel of John, funded by the AHRC. One is a critical edition of the Greek text in the series Novum Testamentum Graecae Editio Critica Maior, some of this is repetitive, in partnership with the Institute for Neue Testamentliche Textforschung Münster, Germany. Another is an edition of the Gospel of John in Latin in the Vitas Latina series. I also contributed to the Come Paul project directed by Dr. Hugh Houghton. I am co-editor of the monograph series. Some of this is repetitive. Other research contributions in recent years include online editions of two early Christian manuscripts, Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Basi. and the Society of Antiquaries of London's three copies of the Magna Carta. My most recent book, Textual Scholarship in the Making of the New Testament, the Lyell Lectures 2011 Oxford, describe many aspects of my current thinking. And then it lists his publications. And there are a number of publications. Obviously, he was a well-published scholar. But I want to call attention to just a few. Gurry made reference to his 1992 book on Codex Basi, An Early Christian Manuscript and its Texts from Cambridge University Press. His groundbreaking work was 1997, though, I think, with respect to influence on a popular level. And it's a little book that's called The Living Text of the Gospels. And then he also in 2008 published with Oxford University Press, sorry, yeah, 2008, Cambridge University Press, An Introduction to the New Testament Manuscripts and Their Texts, plural. And he also published in 2012 Codex Sinaiticus, The Story of the World's Oldest Bible. I've read that one. Again, his book Living Texts of the Gospels is, I think, probably the most important for popularizing some of his postmodern views of how the text of scripture should be approached. And again, this work now has been out for 23 years. It came out in 1997. And it put forward his ideas about the shifts that were taking place in text criticism. In the opening chapter of that book that's titled The Theory, he lays out, I think, a key thesis And in two sentences on page four, he says, quote, there is no original text. There are just different texts from different stages of production, end quote. And that is the postmodern approach in a nutshell. There is no original text. There is no autograph. It cannot be reconstructed, nor should it be. There are just different texts. They are all valid, and they simply show different stages of production. And see, this is relativism of the text of Scripture. And we've got Dr. Peter Gurry saying on one hand, Oh, I deny that. But on the other hand, he's saying, well, what about those people who think that the Freer Logion at the ending of Mark is self-authenticating? And see, I don't know if he's just not aware of the influence of postmodernism in his own worldview. So, That's a little bit about D.C. Parker and his influence. The third thing I want to do, first we had the clip, second we had a little bit about D.C. Parker. The third thing I want to do is I want to read for you my book review. I wrote this review of D.C. Parker's textual scholarship in the making of the New Testament. It was published by Oxford University Press in 2012. It was taken from the Lyle Lectures that Parker gave in 2011 at Oxford. And my review of this book appeared in the journal American Theological Inquiry, volume 7, number 1, in 2014. It was on pages 81 to 84. And the reason I want to read this is I think this will give you a good idea of D.C. Parker's views on the text of the New Testament. and you can judge for yourself what his views are. I quote a lot of directly of his own statements. So I'm just going to take a second and read this and it's actually a little bit longer than I thought. So I hope you'll bear with me as I read this and I hope that this will be interesting for you. So this is my book review of David C. Parker Textual Scholarship in the Making of the New Testament. This book is an expanded edition of Parker's 2011 Lyle Lectures at Oxford University. Though relatively brief, it is densely packed with significant information and observations on the present state and future directions of New Testament textual scholarship from one of the discipline's chief contemporary practitioners and gatekeepers. Overview of the Five Lectures. The body of the book consists of five lectures or chapters, each of which is titled by its opening words. It is bookended by an introduction and conclusion. In lecture one, titled The General Procedures, Parker provides an introduction to a contemporary reappraisal of textual scholarship. He distinguishes between the work a single form of text distilled from all the varied forms in which it is known, the text, the form in which the work appears in each manuscript, and the document, the manuscript in which the text is found, page 11. According to Parker, the New Testament is and has always been, quote, the result of a fusion of technology of whatever kind is in vogue and its accompanying theory, end quote, page 12. The New Testament thus is always evolving. and it will continue to change. Parker suggests the following dictum, quote, that every written work is a process and not an object, end quote, page 21. Thus, Parker argues against, quote, the modern concept of a single authoritative original text as, quote, a hopeless anachronism, end quote, page 24. Scholars must not think of the critical text as the original, but only a recovery of the form of text from which the surviving copies are descended. In the language of Munster and Birmingham, this is the ausgangstext, or initial text. The task of the New Testament philologist then, according to Parker, quote, is not to recover an original authorial text, end quote, but simply, quote, to recover as exactly as may be the oldest recoverable form of the text beneath the manuscript copies," end quote, page 26. In Lecture 2, What is a New Testament Manuscript?, Parker provides a survey of the scholarly study of the circa 5,606 manuscripts of the New Testament, including papyri, majuscules, minuscules, and lectionaries. included in the Authoritative Institute for New Testament Textual Research, LISTA. Most intriguingly, Parker calls attention to a notable, quote, weakness in the available data, end quote, arguing that in the past scholars, quote, went in the wrong direction, end quote, by inconsistently including, but largely excluding from the list, the many commentary manuscripts, including Katina manuscripts that collect excerpts from various commentaries. Parker concludes that the current cataloging system is inadequate, while also acknowledging that, quote, no system will work perfectly and that there will be anomalies, end quote, page 57. More radically, Parker argues that the scholarship abandons, quote, the modern concept of a New Testament manuscript, which is based on the theological model of canonicity, end quote, page 61. He concludes, quote, at this point, I realize that what I am propounding is that there is no such thing as a manuscript of the New Testament. The New Testament is not a work, but a collection of works. Instead, I propose that we should begin to classify manuscripts according to the basic categories of works." End quote, page 63. In lecture three, titled, Understanding How Manuscripts Are Related, Parker turns to discuss how early Christian manuscripts are to be compared. He notes three approaches to comparison. Number one, by physical evidence. Number two, by artwork. Number three, by textual analysis. The latter of these is, of course, the most developed in the field, that is, textual analysis. Parker first traces the development of the genealogical method beginning with Bengal until almost the present day. Particular attention is given to evaluation of the method of Westcott and Hort and their argument for the superiority of the so-called neutral text. Parker concludes that the Westcott-Hort theory was based on, quote, a totally inadequate amount of evidence, end quote, page 82, and that, quote, the theory does not deserve the reverence which has been accorded it, end quote, page 83. In fact, he argues, quote, the time has come to abandon it completely, not because it was wrong, but because we can do better, end quote, page 83. In place of the old genealogical method, Parker advocates for the Munster method or the coherence-based genealogical method. See pages 84 to 95 for Parker's detailed description of this method. This is one of the first times, by the way, I read about the coherence-based genealogical method when I read this book and Parker's comments on it. And his comments on about 10 pages, 84 to 95, is still a very good summary of the CBGM for those who want to learn more about it. In Lecture 4, Editing the Greek New Testament, Parker discusses the process of creating a modern critical edition of the New Testament. He acknowledges that the initial text of a critical edition, quote, is an ideal rather than a real text, since it was never the text of an actual manuscript. Page 103. Parker strikingly describes the modern editor as, quote, the person who confronts the terrifying anarchy of competing variants and becomes in effect the scholarly world's exorcist who drives out the legion of demons and leaves the work sitting and clothed in its right mind." End quote. Pages 103 to 104. For Parker, a critical edition is a narrative or an attempt to make sense of the facts, page 104. Parker then proceeds to argue for the benefits of the Editio Critica Maior, in which he is involved as an editor, as the project most likely to produce the first, quote, truly critical edition of the New Testament, end quote, page 105. He notes in particular that the project, begun by Kurt Aland, will be realized in, quote, a more thoroughgoing way than he could have imagined, end quote, due to technological advances, page 113. It will likely appear in both a print and online edition. Parker confidently predicts it will be completed in about 20 years, around the year 2032. and become the basis for future Greek handbooks, both the UBS and Nestle-Alland editions, as well as almost all translations of the New Testament into vernacular languages, and that it may last for as long as 150 years. He says it on page 121. By the way, as an aside, this is the same guy that Dr. Peter Gurry tells us is a good text scholar, and has made a lot of good contributions, but he's not really a gatekeeper. Okay, anyways, back to my book review. While on one hand praising this project as becoming, quote, the most advanced tool we have for making the New Testament and for describing it, end quote, on the other hand, Parker says he does not want, quote, to foster the myth of an authoritative and definitive single version of the work, end quote, page 124. For Parker, there can never be, in fact, any, quote, single definitive version of the text, end quote. And thus, quote, no single definitive version of the work, end quote, page 124. He puts great hope in a digital edition of the critical text, which, quote, never need never be finished. but can instead be an ever-improving tool for studying the New Testament." End quote, page 124. In Lecture 5, The New Testament of the Future, Parker reflects on how the current digital revolution will impact the transmission of the New Testament. He observes, quote, the new world offered by the computer has already had at least as profound an effect on what we do as did the introduction of printing half a millennium ago." End quote, page 125. According to Parker, the most significant event in modern day humanities research is the development of mass digitation. No longer must a person physically visit a library, university, or museum to see a manuscript, but he can view and examine it online. Parker points in particular to recent efforts to provide a digital version of Codex Sinaiticus online to illustrate this advance. The result of the digital revolution will be, quote, the democratization of fields which have hitherto only been accessible to a few people with the resources and opportunities, end quote, page 136. Parker even speculates that in the future, quote, users will be able to build their own critical text, end quote, page 138. Summary. Parker's brief but dense lectures introduce readers to significant developments in contemporary New Testament textual scholarship. Here is a summary of his main points. Number one, scholars cannot reconstruct the original autograph of the New Testament works, but can only hope to reconstruct the oldest recoverable form of the text behind the various copies or apographa. Number two, we should no longer think in canonical terms of a New Testament manuscript, which does not exist, but in terms of individual works or smaller collections. Third, the genealogical method of text families, whose apotheosis is often considered to be the work of Westcott and Hort, should be replaced by the Munster method, that is, the coherence-based genealogical method. Four, the Editio Critica Maior will provide a groundbreaking critical text in the New Testament with a long-lasting impact. Fifth, the future study and transmission of the New Testament will be greatly impacted by the current digital revolution which is giving unprecedented universal access to textual resources. Reflections. David Parker's lectures reveal many important developments and directions in the contemporary academic study of the text of the New Testament. It also presents several concerns, dilemmas, and ecclesiological questions. Parker tells us, for example, that the quest for the original text of the New Testament has been abandoned. The New Testament is, quote, a process and not an object, end quote. Along the way, he even suggests the traditional concept of the New Testament canon might be passé. If, however, the New Testament has no standard and stable text, which accurately reflects what was written by the apostles and apostolic associates, and no defined canonical boundaries, how can it possibly serve as authoritative scripture for the church? Noteworthy are Parker's criticisms and calls for the overthrow of the influential Westcott and Hort method. In his conclusion, Parker shares that one of his most surprising finds in preparing these lectures, quote, was the realization of my dissatisfaction with Westcott and Hort and the dominance of their theories for so long, end quote, page 147. Parker is critical both of confessional Christians, who make the received text their standard, and Westcott and Hort's neutral text. But will the initial text of the new method Be any freer from a priori assumptions? Parker speaks glowingly of efforts to make the Editio Critica Maior, the standard critical edition of the New Testament. It should be noted, however, that this is a project apparently undertaken purely in academia and extra ecclesia, that is outside the church. One might well ask if it is wise for the church to hand over custody of her scriptures to the academy. Odd, too, are the contradictory impulses in this effort. On one hand, Parker says in good postmodern fashion that he does not want, quote, to foster the myth of an authoritative and definitive single version of the work. But on the other hand, despite all the faint protest, is this not precisely what a critical edition is designed to do? Finally, we might ask if there is any cause for alarm at the brave new world which Parker sees on the horizon for the transmission of the text of the New Testament. Indeed, there are amazing benefits of access that are coming with the digitization of the New Testament manuscripts. One is left wondering, however, if the result might be less democracy than anarchy. If, as Parker envisions the possibility, each individual might be able to build his own critical text, will there exist an authoritative New Testament that might serve as a clear communal standard for doctrine and practice? In his conclusion, Parker ponders the irony of the fact that he offered these lectures in 2011, the 400th anniversary of the King James Version, musing on, quote, the impact of multiple privatized versions on the concept of authorized versions to be read in churches, end quote, page 146. The question, however, is whether such a development should be considered an advance for the Christian movement and its New Testament, or potentially its unraveling and downfall. That concludes my book review that I wrote back in 2014 that appeared in American Theological Inquiry of D.C. Parker's textual scholarship in the making of the New Testament. Again, you can take my review, Anna, where I think I fairly laid out D.C. Parker's views, and you can evaluate whether you think D.C. Parker has had an influence in contemporary academic text criticism and whether or not that influence has trickled down to the pulpit and the pew. In conclusion now, this is the fourth and last part of this word magazine. Some of you may be wondering, when is this thing ever going to come to an end? Let me look real quickly. We're over an hour. That's not too bad. So let's give a brief conclusion. So let me offer this assessment as I reflect on that part of the conversation with Dr. Peter Gurry. First of all, Dr. Peter Gurry says, oh, the shift that's taken place, it's been only a minor shift. It's not been a major shift. And my assessment is that there has, in fact, in the last 25 years or so, certainly since D.C. Parker's The Living Texts of the Gospels, that there has been a momentous postmodern shift in contemporary academic text criticism. Secondly, Dr. Gurry denied the influence of D.C. Parker in particular, and I would say quite the contrary. D.C. Parker has exerted enormous influence in the field of contemporary New Testament text criticism. For just one piece of final evidence, to cinch this point. I recently finished reading, I've been off and on reading the book by Jennifer Knust and Tommy Wasserman. And it was my quotation from Tommy Wasserman that we got started off with his statement that he wanted to do text criticism without any concern for establishing the original text. And he wanted to do text criticism as if God didn't exist, as if he had no theological presuppositions. And anyways, Jennifer Canoos and Tommy Wasserman came out with this book, which eventually I'm going to do a writer book review of. And the book is called, To Cast the First Stone, the Transmission of a Gospel Story. And now this is the, I think, preeminent work on the Pricpe Adulteri, the woman taking an adultery passage. And so these two scholars co-authored this book. Jennifer Knust was at Boston University, and is now at Duke University. And Wasserman is a Swedish Baptist scholar, one of the moderators for the Evangelical Text Criticism blog. And they have a lot of interesting things to say about the Perikope Adulteri. But as you open this book, 2019, and you look at the front matter and you go past the title page, you come to the dedication for this book. And the dedication for the book reads, for David C. Parker on the occasion of his retirement. And then, if you read the opening acknowledgments, which begin on page Roman numeral 13, and they proceed to page Roman numeral 18, the concluding paragraph of the acknowledgment says the following. Finally, in recognition of his long service to our discipline, and his profound influence upon us. We have chosen to dedicate this book to David C. Parker. His living texts, vibrant scholarship, overwhelming openness, and noble example give us much to admire. We wish him the best for his retirement and would like to express our sincerest thanks for everything he has taught us. Thank you, David." Well, here's my question as I reflect again on that conversation, which was a train wreck that I had with Peter Gurry and James Knapp, but in particular, that little snippet that I played for you of the conversation with Peter Gurry. Why was Peter Gurry so intent in that conversation in denying the shift, the postmodern shift that has taken place in contemporary text criticism. And why did he seem so intent on denying the influence of D.C. Parker as a gatekeeper in postmodern text criticism? I don't know. I really don't know why he seems so intent on that. I think it would be burying one's head in the sand to deny the shift that has taken place in contemporary academic text criticism. And I think it also would be burying one's head in the sand to fail to acknowledge that this will have an influence on those who take up the use of this methodology, and for every evangelical and even conservative, otherwise conservative, confessionally reformed person who embraces this methodology, I think it would be bearing your head in the sand to think that it will not have an influence on your view of the authority of Scripture. And yes, I want to say this charitably, but I want to say it firmly. I believe that it will have a negative impact. on your view of the authority of Scripture and looking to Scripture as the basis, the paramount basis, for faith and practice within traditional Christianity. Well, I appreciate your patience in listening to this, particularly me reading through that long book review, and I hope that this edition of Word Magazine will be fruitful and edifying for those who listen, and I will look forward to speaking to you in the next edition of Word Magazine. Till then, take care and God bless.